Rory Block: 'The Lady and Mr. Johnson'

Rory Block’s guitar licks linger, hanging in the air like the ghost of Robert Johnson.

There are a lot of spirits flowing through her new album, “The Lady and Mr. Johnson,” on which Block interprets 13 of Johnson’s tunes. Block’s slide guitar notes swirl around her lovely vocals on tunes such as “Cross Road Blues,” “Milkcow’s Calf Blues” and “Terraplane Blues.”

Johnson’s music always seemed to swirl with emotion, too. His songs usually sounded like a battle between good and evil. Indeed, Johnson, who died when he was 27, seemed to be running from personal demons every time he sang.

Block doesn’t seem to have any of her own demons, and I doubt she made a deal with the devil. “Hellhound on My Trail” resonates anyway; it sounds old, almost sacred. That’s probably because she’s been chasing the spirit of Robert Johnson since she was a girl.

This year she finally caught up with that spirit when she met Johnson’s family. She’s even performing a series of concerts with one of the grandchildren and his gospel choir.

You don’t have to squint very hard when you look at the photo on the back cover of the “The Lady and Mr. Johnson” to imagine that Robert Johnson’s great-grandson Richard is actually the blues master himself. And it takes no imagination at all to figure out that Robert Johnson would have loved this album.

Listen to Block play and sing “Kind Hearted Woman Blues.” I think Johnson wrote it for her.